Tag: Tawk Tomahawk

Hiatus Kaiyote – Choose Your Weapon

“Kaiyote” is not a word. It’s a made up word, but it kind of sounds like peyote and coyote – it’s a word that involved the listeners creativity as to how they perceive it. So it reminds you of things but it’s nothing specific. When I looked it up on online it was like a bird appreciation society around the world, so for me that was a great omen, because I’m a bird lady. A hiatus is essentially a pause, it’s a moment in time. So, to me, a hiatus is taking a pause in your life to take in your surroundings, have a full panoramic view of your experiences and absorbing, and “kaiyote” is expressing them in a way involves the listeners creativity.

— Nai Palm, explaining the bands name.

Hiatus Kaiyote is a future-soul quartet (Nai Palm (vocals, guitar), Paul Bender (bass), Simon Mavin (keyboards) and Perrin Moss (drums, percussion)) from Melbourne. Choose Your Weapon released by Flying Buddha in May. Singer songwriter Nai Palm stated she had a vision for Hiatus Kaiyote’s brand of future soul. “I always knew I wanted to be in a band, but I never knew it could be my own conversation.” It didn’t take long for that vision to attract attention. Gilles Peterson of Crossover Jazz fame named them the Breakthrough Artist of 2013.

The band released their debut album Tawk Tomahawk independently in 2012, noticed by numerous musicians including Q-Tip, Animal Collective, The Dirty Projectors, and Erykah Badu. When Salaam Remi of Sony started up the Flying Buddha label and distributed their debut album world wide, later introducing the band to Q-Tip, it led to him featuring on a remix of “Nakamarra” included on the re-release of their debut, that was then nominated for a Grammy for Best R&B Performance, performed with Q-Tip himself. The band released Choose Your Weapon in May 2015. Lead vocalist Nai Palm described the album as an “extension” of their debut, and stated she and the band had no intention to make one genre body of work.